


Let Our Scars Fall in Love

by Clea Strange (agentj)



Category: Doctor Strange (2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-08 22:51:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12874740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentj/pseuds/Clea%20Strange
Summary: Stephen struggles with the scars left by Nightmare as he learns to trust the strange woman from the Dark Dimension.





	Let Our Scars Fall in Love

_I sit here bonding _   
_ with some brand new scars _

* * *

_ What a long day. _

Stephen held himself rather stiffly as he made his way through the Sanctum to his bedroom. His body screamed in pain, but he didn't want his companions to know how much he was suffering. The quicker he could lock himself away from prying eyes, the better. He slipped through the door of his chambers and quietly shut the door behind him. Stephen sighed as he felt the cloak slip from his shoulders and move to stand like a sentinel next to the door of his bedroom.

Sleep was not his priority tonight. In fact, after tonight, Strange wasn't sure he could ever sleep again. Or if he wanted to.

But his body had other demands which needed attending. Sitting at the bed's edge, he carefully removed the glove from his right hand. Slowly he flexed the digits, wincing at the deeply-embedded ache which he could never manage to rid himself of. Sadly, he couldn't just take arthritic medication to chase away the pain as it seemed to interfere with his ability to wield magic. And although he could use magic to control the spasms, most of the time his energy needed to be directed elsewhere.

Like tonight.

"With adrenaline pumping through your veins, you never feel how bad it hurts…until the danger has past," Stephen spoke out loud. He was directing it as if he were talking to his cloak, but technically he was just talking to himself.

Or so he thought.

Suddenly the door creaked open, and the woman from the Dark Dimension pressed herself against the door as if she were trying to sneakily see inside. The tangle of white hair essentially gave her away. That and the fact that she was practically standing in his room while she did it.

He stared up in surprise for a moment, then suddenly felt vulnerable in his private space. Stephen tucked his bare hand under his left armpit. "Don't you knock?"

"Knock?" she asked, looking puzzled.

With his gloved left hand, Stephen gestured. "Rapping on the door. Make a sound before you come in."

"Oh. Sorry." She stepped back to the other side of the threshold and reached out with a knuckle against the obviously open door. "Hello? May I come in?"

He couldn't stop himself from a chuckle. For someone who was likely almost as ancient as the Ancient One herself, Clea came across as innocent and childlike.

_ But not ignorant _ , he thought to himself. No, her instincts served her well tonight, although it certainly could have gone a very different way. Initially he had chided her for entering into the realm of the dreamscape when he directly told her to watch over his body. In the end, he was extremely grateful that Clea had sensed the danger and dove in after him - albeit foolishly.

Still, there was an understanding of emotional wisdom from her soul. Though her face did not necessarily portray it, her aura exuded her own kind of knowledge and street-smarts which Stephen found comforting when facing Nightmare.

Strange shuddered. He really wanted to dive deep into a mindless meditative state and wash away the dark claw marks of torment the demon had laid bare from his soul. Stephen debated whether or not he really wanted Clea with him right now. For all the assistance she provided, he most certainly really would rather have spent the time recuperating alone. But before he could form an idea as speech, she invited herself in again and sat beside him on the bed. Very, very close.

Strange frowned at her eager face. "Why are you here?" he finally mustered.

"I couldn't sleep," said she with a heavy seriousness to that lightly exotic lilt to her voice. Her eyes peered deeply into his as if she were seeking something out.

He glanced away, looking down at his feet. "I know the feeling," he mumbled.

He could feel her continuing to scrutinize him. "And I have question," she continued.

"All right…" He glanced back at her.

Hooking her arms around his right elbow, she asked, "Are you…okay?"

"I'm fine," his voice rasped as if his vocal chords were being dragged across sandpaper and again looked away. Something dropped into the pit of Stephen's stomach. There was just something…mysterious? unusual? dangerous…about her. He wasn't quite certain how to accept her yet. The way she looked at him was disarming. It elicited something in him he thought was long dead.

Although it wasn't that long ago he would have taken full advantage of a pretty girl showing him affection and compassion. In fact, it was that very thing which he used to hook his ex Christine into his life before the accident. Before Kamar-Taj…

The flippant remark Christine made when she saw Clea haunted him.  _ You have a penchant for colleagues, I see. _ Had he really been so transparent and hollow in his days as a neurosurgeon?

_ Why, yes, I was _ . Stephen sighed. Loneliness gnawed at him in a way he couldn't even put into words. When had it started? Was it the day he gnashed his teeth at Christine when he was angry at the world for leaving him a cripple after that stupid horrific accident? Was it when he realized that Christine had moved on in her life, and that his new life was worlds away from her now, serving something greater than himself in ways neither one of them could have imagined?

Or had it actually happened decades ago when death had taken away his family one by one? Twists of fate seemed to garrote Stephen's prana from love and affection throughout his life. For what reason? What was its purpose? What horrors had he performed in another life that left him bereft of happiness?

"I have lost you," said a soft voice to his right.

Stephen turned to look at its source.

Clea.

Her face, though clouded with worry, shone in the darkness of his room.

_ God, she is beautiful _ , thought Stephen, helplessly. Something about her made him want to wrap his arms around her and never let her go. He wanted to protect her from the slings and arrows of the world, yet at the same time, he felt careful to tread his way around her as if she could break him in two with merely a glance.

_ Well, she had grown up under the rule of Dormammu, so there's that… _ Stephen realized that she must have seen her fair share of blood-curdling horrors too, considering the pin-drop impulsivity of the fiery energy being who ruled over her domain. Perhaps to her seeing someone die over and over again was perfectly normal.

Oh, right. It was.

It astounded him when she explained how she had become trapped in his time loop with he and Dormammu as well. She had sensed the energy of the interdimensional rift which was forming between her dimension and his. Knowing that Dormammu was about to launch an invasion, she watched from a nearby planetoid.

Over and over, she watched him die. Over and over, Stephen took it all. She had never seen someone sacrifice themself so selflessly before. It inspired her to do what she had never dared in the countless cycles of her monotonous life - she stood up against Dormammu and told the people the truths she knew about him. It was an unforgivable treachery. To dissuade the people from doing what she had done, she had to be made an example of.

Between that and the fact that somehow he heard her plea for help, Strange suspected she fell victim of a kind of Nightingale effect, but with him as the caretaker.

He'd had more than his fair share of lovely ladies vying for his attention at the many symposiums, award acceptances, and medical conferences when he was at the top of his game as a neurosurgeon. Once he would have gladly accepted their affections, even to the point where he became oblivious to the poor soul who had accompanied him to said event.

Unlike any of those ladies, Clea wasn't really all that coy, and she certainly had proven herself to be perfectly capable of defending herself. She also told him she liked him in no uncertain terms, and certainly why not? She found him brave and handsome and wise. Why the hell not?

But this was no longer those days when he pretended to be suave and god's gift to all who fell under his purview. Strange was no longer so eager to accept any warm body to his bed. He no longer had anything to prove to anyone, especially himself. The thought of losing himself in heady decadence and sensuality for the sake of losing himself no longer appealed to him. Instead, thoughts of grave responsibilities weighed upon him, and the consequences thereof. Were he to involve someone in his life, he would unwittingly welcome unrelenting horror into their own.

As he had with Clea tonight.

Still, there was something…different…about Clea. It wasn't just his aching loneliness and desire for intimacy. Every time she looked at him, every time they touched, it elicited a kind of memory in him.

_ Ocean. White sands. Jagged limestone rock face jutting out into the blue-green sea… A warm embrace. A deep inner knowing that he was loved for exactly who he was - no questions asked. Unconditional. Eternal. _

He shook the cobwebs from his mind. "I'm here."

She looked at the hand still tucked under his other arm.

"What this?" Letting go of his elbow, she reached for his hand he was trying to hide.

"Uh, no! It's nothing," he tried to dissuade her, but Clea was nothing but determined in nearly everything she did.

Pulling his hand out from its hiding place, Clea's fingertips began to explore the silvery lines of his scars. She placed one of her petite hands against his palm while running the fingertips of her other hand against the back of his. A faint light glow emitted from her fingertips and spread across his hand, going deep into the tissues, muscle and bone.

When she was finished, she removed her hands and smiled up eagerly at him.

Stephen had watched her ministrations with some fascination. There was something instinctual about what she did - how she used magic, energy and power. It wasn't an incantation or a spell - that much Stephen could sense by the tendrils of energy which lingered inside of him. What she did wasn't a drawing out of energy from some ethereal somewhere. No, it was…creation. Something deep inside of her seemed to generate that which she brought forth in her magic. It was feminine and natural.

Nothing short of miraculous for Stephen's relief, the ache had receded. He looked back at Clea who, it seemed to him, must have been looking to him for approval.

"How'd you do that?"

Fear crept into her eyes. "Oh. I'm sorry. I did wrong?"

"N-no. I-it's fine. Great, in fact." He flexed his hand. "It feels much better now. Thank you."

Clea curled her lips into her mouth, trying to be happy that she pleased him, but she obviously felt very self conscious about her actions, both when she entered the room and now again when she tried to help ease his pain.

"I just--" Stephen began, but then it dawned on him. During his internship, he had worked the ER to gain practical experience in every kind of situation. More than once, Stephen found himself treating someone who had been on the receiving end of an unkindly lover or caretaker. There was just something about their aura he had picked up on even then, as if they were broadcasting, "Love me. I've been wronged." At some point, his heart hardened, and he turned away from their silent pleas.

He was being given an opportunity to change that.

Gently, Stephen reached his scarred hand over to both of hers which now lay clasped in her lap. Lightly, he touched the back of her left hand and let the assuring weight warm her.

"Never fear you've done me, Wong, or anyone else wrong, Clea. Especially when your intentions are good."

Her eyes brightened at that, and her lips unfurled to return his soft smile.

She looked down at his hand, the silvery lines crisscrossing the terrain of his flesh. One of her fingers poked upward from under his touch to touch between his thumb and forefinger. "This is not recent."

"Uh…no. It's, um…from an accident. It's the reason why I'm not a healer any more."

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I know it's impolite to speak of someone's scars."

"Is it?"

She pursed her lips and nodded. "Everyone has scars. Some of them seen - others not. But to ask of them is to pry. We do not do this in Dark Dimension. It brings them to the surface. Best to leave them alone."

He gave her hand a small squeeze. "I'm sorry - if my scars bring up yours, too."

She looked at him in surprise. Yes, actually, they had. But not these lines on his hands.

Nightmare had kept children hostage in his mindscape, and they had been asked to assist and recover. In exchange for releasing the children from his spell, Nightmare had claimed the two of them instead. Stephen had originally gone alone, but sensing something was wrong, Clea entered the dreamscape through him, and became ensnared in his nightmare.

Nightmare tore them asunder, both together and separately. Her pain was closer to the surface. In the blink of an eye, her whole universe shifted - in this case, literally. The last time she saw home, she had awoken a rock buried deep in her gut, smoothed and polished by the churning agony of injustice she witnessed all around her. Impulsively, she threw that rock without regard to consequences, and as a result, she lost her home and likely the only remaining family she had.

The incubus revealed she hadn't been the only one to lose all that she loved. Strange's pain was far deeper, so when Nightmare ripped it from him, Clea became part of his vision, living through it over and over.

"I am sorry about your brother," said she, simply.

They looked into each other's eyes for a long lingering moment, filled with pain and sorrow. Then glancing away, Stephen raised his left hand and cast a summoning spell. From a dark corner of the room, a framed photograph appeared and drifted into his hand.

He passed it to Clea with an explanation: "My family."

She loosened a hand from under his and clasped the frame. As Stephen withdrew his hand from her lap, she held the picture with both hands, looking deeply into each face in turn underneath the glass.

She recognized the people from Stephen's dream. His little brother especially. In this photograph, his brother was laughing heartily at something unseen or unheard by the moment of the camera's shutter. A younger Stephen, sans his gray temples, looked pleased with himself as he smiled at the camera. There seemed to be something between the brothers that made Clea think it was Stephen's doing that his brother was captured in such a state of merriment.

Such a different face than the one Stephen saw staring up at him on the pavement outside his New York apartment. Clea had seen the same face many times herself on the visage of her people who were deemed traitorous or unnecessary in the eyes of Dormammu.

These were the scars that were not seen.

There was another girl in the photograph, too. She was wearing thick glasses. This was someone Clea also recognized from the dreamscape.

_ Water. Couldn't move fast enough. Feeling as if the very ground were dragging him under. Never quite close enough to touch. Only a few teaspoons can kill you. _

The dream replayed in her head as it had for Stephen under Nightmare's relentless onslaught against his psyche.

"My sister," he explained.

Silently, Clea's mouth formed an 'oh'.

"She's the reason I became a doctor. Nobody knew why her eyesight started to fail. The optometrists just kept giving her stronger and stronger glasses. Then she started acting more erratic, and doing poorly in school. The doctors said it was just because she was feeling shut out from the world as she lost her eyesight.

"Besides going to medical school to find out what was wrong, I tried to help her feel more 'normal.' Do the things we'd always done. But then she had that seizure when we were swimming in the lake--"

His voice choked for a moment, then he sighed and touched his gloved and bare fingertips together in his lap as a means of focusing his mind and calm himself. He wouldn't let Nightmare have control of him in that twisted reality, and Strange sure as hell wasn't going to let the memories Nightmare churned up in him carry him off again now.

He continued in a soft voice. "She had a type of neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses*, an inherited neurological disorder. Just too rare for the doctors in old hick town Nebraska to comprehend."

Clea turned her attention to his face, empathy etching itself around her eyes and mouth. She may not have understood all the words, but she comprehended the sorrow inside of him where the spirit of his sister once lived.

"I only pieced it together once I had some training under my belt. I just had a feeling there was something more than the local doctors understood." He sighed. "Not like my knowledge did any good after the fact."

Clea laid the photograph down on the bed beside her, then leaned over to him and took his ungloved hand once again in hers. Looking deeply into his face - though his eyes were focused on the sadness of the past - she entwined her fingers with his.

Something about this gesture seemed to bring Stephen out of his reverie. He turned his head to peer back at her. Her face was filled with understanding and compassion. He swallowed, but didn't want to let himself fall into the depths of despair. Instead, he focused on the light of her eyes, round and swirling with the deep colors reflected in his room.

Stephen put his gloved hand over their joined fingers, and she returned the gesture by placing her free hand next to his gloved one.

They sat like that for a while until Stephen's eyes grew heavy. Clea drew his head to her shoulder, and they reclined back against the soft covers of his bed. She held him like this until he was fast asleep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> *Batten Disease [https://beyondbatten.org/understanding-batten/what-is-batten/]


End file.
